6ec. 11.] BIRDS. 201 



for any reason there is an unusual demand, an increased price. To this may 

 he added, if it he a rufled grouse country, two or three broods of these 

 liardy, bold, and delicate birds, wliieli rarely produce fewer than twelve and 

 thence u[)ward to sixteen poults, so that the landholder may reckon on his 

 fifteen to twenty brace of rufied grouse at seventy-live cents a brace, and on 

 his thirty or forty rabbits, at a dime a head. Here is a profit of perhaps 

 fifty dollars per annum, arising from no expenditure, from no investment of 

 cajiital, and involving as a consequence, several days or hours of pleasant 

 exorcise and amusement in lieu of labor, for the purpose of rendering it 

 marketable. On snipe grounds and countries adapted to woodcock, the 

 profits are yet more enormous. 



The number of woodcock to be killed annually on any given piece of 

 ground is never so great as that of snipe, since the birds killed in the early 

 part of the season consist of those bred oa the ground itself on which they 

 arc shot, which is of course a limited number, although the autumnal fiights, 

 which come in successively, are those bred in the uncultivated wastes far to 

 the northward. Yet even of these, there are numerous localities, especially 

 in parts of the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 

 Michigan, and other Western States, which might be counted on as sure to 

 furnish ten woodcock to the acre in each season, at twenty-five cents the bird. 



It can hardly be doubted that by the system of game protecting, without 

 expending a dollar, every owner farming from 100 to 200 acres of land in a 

 country well adapted for game — and there is but little country in any of the 

 Northern, Western, or Middle States Avhich is nut adapted to it — can add 

 from $50 to $200, and in some instances a much larger sum to his annual 

 incotne. If he liave trout-streams, and the facility of making a chain of 

 small trout-ponds, as may be easily done in every deep glen watered by a 

 rapid brook, instead of suflering them to be weired and netted by all the 

 vagabonds of the country side, he might make thousands more easily than 

 by his poultry -yard or sheep-fold, and at far less cost. 



With these facts before them, it is for the farmers themselves to consider 

 whether game-laws are the obnoxious things that demagogues have taught 

 them to believe. Is it not rather worth their while to insist upon the 

 enactment, and strict observance of such laws as will protect their own 

 interests, and aflord them such additions to their income as we have bricfiy 

 hinted at. 



2-JrO. Sendiii; Wild Pii^eons (o .Marketi— The Eigle, newspaper, printed at 

 Grand liapids, Michigan, ])ul)lisliod an article in the spring of ISOU, about 

 the pigeon trade. There liad been at that time shipiied from that village 

 5S8 barrels of wild pigeons— equal to 108,555 lbs. The express freight on 

 this quantity at three cents a pound, would be $3,25G C5. If sold at twenty 

 cents a pound, they would bring $l'1,711. It was estimated that the west 

 part of Michigan had sent two millions of wild pigeons to market in one 

 season. This great number can easily be understood by those who are 

 acquainted with the manner in which these birds flock together. To one 



